Muslim pilgrims rest in the shade of a bus on Sunday near Namira Mosque on the second day of the annual hajj pilgrimage, in Arafat, Saudi Arabia.
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Almost two million Muslims have gathered in the vast Saudi plain of Mount Arafat for the most important ritual of the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage that re-enacts the actions of the Prophet Muhammad from more than 1,400 years ago.
Iranian authorities – who assert that more than 4,500 people died during last year’s disaster, according to The New York Times – announced in May that Saudi Arabia had made insufficient progress in addressing safety concerns.
This year’s event has been free of trouble so far, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Mansur al-Turki.
The pilgrims congregated from sunrise at the site and the vast plain which surrounds it, about 15km from Mecca.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have been engaged in a public verbal spat following a stampede at the annual haj pilgrimage past year in which hundreds of pilgrims – many of them Iranians – died. Official figures reported that of the total attending the pilgrimage this year, 1, 325 372 have traveled from other countries, while 537,000 reside in the kingdom, of which only 170, 492 are Saudis, as others are expatriates living here.
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From Arafat, the pilgrims will proceed to Muzdalifa where they will offer the Maghreb and Isha prayers together and rest at night.
Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which capable Muslims must perform at least once.
Hajj. In laymans term means to initiate a trip; to Muslims the word “hajj” means to embark on a journey of faith to the house of God or simply pilgrimage to Mecca.
Saudi Arabia’s state news agency, SPA, also published a four-part broadside accusing Iran’s leaders of using “the cloak of religion to implement heretical policies”.
But that’s not enough for Iran, which opted instead to endorse an alternative pilgrimage to Karbala, an Islamic holy site in Iraq. They picked up pebbles along the way that will be used in a symbolic stoning of the devil in Mina, where Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim – named Abraham in the Bible – out of submitting to God’s will.
Earlier this month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticised the kingdom’s organisation of the haj, accusing authorities of having “murdered” some pilgrims.
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Following the stampede and the execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi Arabia, which renewed diplomatic tensions between the two countries, the Iranian government blocked its citizens from attending this year. Roads have also been widened in the Jamarat area, newspapers reported. The series said 300 Iranian pilgrims caused last year’s crush by taking a wrong turn in the direction opposite where they had been assigned to move.
